St. Joseph’s University Invites Wolves to Scatter Fold with “Unity Week” |
| By TFP Student Action |
| September 30, 2010 |
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| "Unity Week" only provides disunity. (Photo: perroazul) |
This year Unity Week will sponsor speakers and events that are in direct conflict with the moral teaching of the Catholic Church and the mission statement of the university, which affirms:
“The Catholic character of Saint Joseph's University springs from its historical relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, and from its current embodiment of the great traditions of Catholic life and culture. For this University, Christ and the Church are sources of truth, guides and inspirations for life.”
However, according to a tentative 2010 Unity Week schedule forwarded to TFP Student Action, the following disturbing activities are planned, beginning on October 31:
- A talk by Shawn Decker, a pro-homosexual activist who promotes “safe-sex” and contraception among college students;
- A talk by “LGBT advocate and policy attorney” Brian Sims, titled Coming Out on the Gridiron;
- A presentation by the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus, suggestively titled “Brotherly Love;”
- A talk by Shiva Subbaraman, director of the LGBTQ Center at Georgetown University
In previous years, Unity Week has:
- Screened R rated movies such as Brokeback Mountain and MILK;
- Featured “transgender woman,” Isis King;
- Featured homosexual activist Darren Manzella, advocate of open homosexuality in the U.S. Military;
- Hosted the Log Cabin Republicans
- Sponsored “Rainbow Week Liturgy: A Eucharistic Celebration of Unity”
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| St. Joseph's University: Web site screen shot advertising Unity Week. |
Although university officials at St. Joseph’s might claim that Unity Week is only meant to facilitate “dialogue,” the evidence shows otherwise.
For example, the student newspaper The Hawk features a pro-homosexual “Out on Campus” section. In one issue, graduate student Katie MacTurk said: “Once you see someone come to a Unity Week event, once you see someone with that Unity Week pin, once you see someone being friends with someone that’s gay and knowing that they’re gay and being supportive of that, it’s like ‘oh okay, that’s okay.’”1
In 2004, Bishop Joseph P. McFadden, a St. Joseph’s alumnus, opposed Rainbow Week. “While the Church asks that we recognize the unique dignity of every human person, it does not mean supporting a lifestyle that is contrary to the natural law,” he said to The Catholic Standard & Times.2
Unity Requires Truth
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| Why are the wolves allowed in? (Photo: S. Jurvestson) |
“There’s no unity without truth,” said TFP Student Action director John Ritchie. “And Unity Week is more about disunity from Church teaching than it is an effort to favor true unity based on the principles of our faith. This event invites the wolves to confuse and scatter the flock – Catholic college students – and that’s unacceptable.”
“In our dark days, homosexual sin, ever abhorred by the Christian conscience, finds prominent apologists within Catholic universities,” Ritchie continued. “However, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium have condemned few sins more consistently or severely.”
TFP Student Action invites its members and subscribers to contact the president of St. Joseph’s University and respectfully call for the cancelation of the pro-homosexual Unity Week. Your voice as a student, alumni, or concerned parent or individual is important in the peaceful struggle for moral values.
St. Joseph’s University
Fr. Timothy R. Lannon, S.J.
Office of the President
5600 City Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19131
Phone: 610-660-1200
Email: president@sju.edu
and tlannon@sju.edu
(Please be polite and respectful.)
Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Cardinal Justin Rigali
222 North 17th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103-1299
Phone: 215-587-3600
Comments
ttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09082609.html
Purity is the solution. Prayer is the solution. God's grace is the solution.
Lastly, your statistic that HIV infection rates are high among homosexual men has nothing to do with your argument. It's like saying Hurricane Katrina happened because Americans are sinners.
The argument that homosexuals are “born that way” has led to a quest for a homosexual gene. Three research projects have been commonly misinterpreted to support that conclusion, namely those of Dr. Simon LeVay, Drs. J. Michael Bailey and Richard C. Pillard, and Dr. Dean Hamer.
The Catholic Medical Association summarizes the facts in "Homosexuality and Hope":
"The media have promoted the idea that a 'gay gene' has already been discovered...but, in spite of several attempts, none of the much-publicized studies... has been scientifically replicated. A number of authors have carefully reviewed these studies and found that not only do the studies not prove a genetic basis for same-sex attraction; the reports do not even contain such claims..."
“I think it’s up to us to preach
very strongly that this was a
chastisement from God.”
The Catholic Church in her wisdom, offers a compassionate teaching about same sex attraction. THe man/woman sexual relatioship is true to natural law and to human society since the beginning of the written word. Tolerance not based upon solid truth is mere permissiveness that will only lead to more grave error and suffering.
In your wishful thinking, if it's ok for a GBLT to have sexual relations with each other, ..then why not more than 2, or 3, or...
What reason do you offer to support that only two GBLT oriented people should be the accepted norm in a binding relationship?
or, are do you say it's just ok to have as many as you please in a sexual realtionship?
Please do enlighten us all..
What about people who have changed their orientation? Doesn't that prove it is not genetic?
My cousin changed.
"An Ally" I fully support everything you said, the people who support and created this protest, should focus on something that actually effects them. UNITY week clearly has no impact on your life, because you are a closeminded person, who refuses to accept the incredible people in the Saint Joseph's Community.
And what about the truth? Should Catholics jettison the truth, natural law, and Divine Revelation for "tolerance." I don't think so. But that is what is happening at St. Joseph's with disunity week.
The same was taught by Our Savior Jesus Christ: “From the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife.” (Mark 10:6-7).
Genesis also teaches how God punished Sodom and Gomorrah for the sin of homosexuality: “The Lord rained down sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah. He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil.” (Gen. 19:24-25)
Your understanding of Canon Law is lacking. The Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia has the ability to remove the University's association with the Church.
The University, its President, and the Jesuit Order are causing great scandal by permitting and promoting Unity week, which, by its very nature is not unifying but divisive.
We all are entitled to our own beliefs and opinions regarding homosexuality. Yet, we must recognize that as human beings, we are not infallible. We are in no place to judge others.
Do you honestly believe that these individuals would choose a homosexual lifestyle knowing very well the ridicule and abuse so many ignorant people are willing to spew at them? As human beings we need to carry each other, not condemn one another, especially witnessing the recent tragedies that stem from such intolerance. Plus, there are far worse issues to be addressed in the world. Wake up, people.
There are no non-Catholic Jesuits (unless they are confused with those who left the faith.)
First of all, in terms of #20 Class of 2011's statement, that is false. Saint Joe's, as with every other Jesuit institution, is also Catholic. The Jesuits are a Catholic religious order that takes a vow of obedience to the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church. We are not under the control of the Bishop, but rather the Jesuit Provincial in Maryland (this is why our Chapel is not a Church, it has no parish. A parish is under a diocese). This is not a major issue, just a factual misunderstanding.
Next, in response to #17 Proud Catholic's post, neither Unity Week nor SJU favors same-sex marriage. Saying that we favor same sex marriage implies that we prefer that over heterosexual marriage. Unity week does not press homosexuality on any one attending (as TFP's article "Answering the Top 10 Arguments Used to Push Homosexuality" would suggest). Post continued...
Now then, in response to the article itself, it quotes the University's Mission Statement. If, however, we read on in the mission statement we see that in the very next statement we affirm the "full respect for the freedom of conscience of each person" and "We seek to engage the full participation of the entire community in the University's intellectual, cultural, and spiritual life." Yes, that's right, you read correctly, the ENTIRE community. That is the purpose of Unity Week.
And I shall close with what our Mission statement closes with, a promise of a University community "that exists as a vital cultural plurality, aware of and committed to its central identity, while yet open and welcoming to all." We can be both Catholic, and tolerant.
MB 2013
This is one of those classic incidences in which "Christians" forget to ask the crucial question, "What would Jesus do?" I'm almost positive he wouldn't quell a peaceful demonstration that celebrates acceptance of ALL God's children.
(P.S. Even if you're dense enough to think homosexuality is wrong, the philosophy is "love the sinner, hate the sin." Get a grasp of Church teaching before you speak.)
Everyone has dignity, we are all made in the image and likeness of God, which is an integral part of the Jesuit education. This is probably why people who go to SJU don't find something like Unity Week strange--only a fringe group of students who are confused and misled by irresponsible Catholics who are comfortable putting their brothers and sisters (also God's children) down.
However, there are far more grave implications to this press release. If you imply being "pro-homosexual" is incompatible with being Catholic, then what alternative remains? Being "anti-homosexual"? Would you say being Catholic means being anti-homosexual? Such is the implication.
This language game reveals itself to be much more sinister.
I suggest TFP itself causes scandal and confusion. Acting as its own magisterium (not the Magisterium, mind you), TFP selectively cobbles together teachings of the Catholic faith which support its own narrow position without regard to pastoral application.
So the question is this: Is homosexual behavior good or bad? The Catholic Church for 2,000 years affirms that it is bad -- based on natural law and God's Law. Period. If one is a good and obedient Catholic and follower of Christ, one must necessarily reject sodomy, love the sinner yet hate the sin. Yes, did I say hate the sin? End of discussion. Calling one who is obedient to the Church a bigot or intolerant does not address the crux of the issue: homosexual sin is wrong, a moral evil, and there is no amount of spinning or talk of unity to justify it. It is part of the culture of death because it deviates the reproductive instinct to an end for which it was not made (hence it is 100% sterile) and is closed to new life. That's reality and I can't change reality.
Above the Chief Justice's box there is a diagram of Moses holding the Tablets of the Ten Commandments of God. I would say that it is pretty obvious that our forefathers placed a great deal of importance on the Ten Commandments being the law of the land. I think that we should start acting like it and ensure that God's laws are practiced throughout the land and especially at SJU.
But quoting the New & Old Testament just begs the question: what's your view on women in today's world?
While we're talking about equality...
Proud of Father Lannon because I know he won't let you all scare him - he hasn't before!
In the 1960s, society was pressured to accept all kinds of immoral sexual relationships between men and women. Today we are seeing a new sexual revolution where society is being asked to accept sodomy and same-sex “marriage.”
If homosexual “marriage” is universally accepted as the present step in sexual “freedom,” what logical arguments can be used to stop the next steps of incest, pedophilia, bestiality, and other forms of unnatural behavior? Indeed, radical elements of certain “avant garde” subcultures are already advocating such aberrations.
"The gay movement, whether we acknowledge it or not, is not a civil rights movement, not even a sexual liberation movement, but a moral revolution aimed at changing people's view of homosexuality."
Also, you keep quoting the bible. This just makes you look more uneducated. Somebody wrote a book 2000 years ago and you believed it word for word. Someone also said the world is flat, dragons are real and the tooth fairy gives you money when you loose your teeth. I bet in your free time your trying to catch unicorn in your backyard as well. Your a very basic person I imagine.
I have an idea. Maybe take some time this weekend, leave your basement and talk to some real live human beings. See what the world is all about. Do some actual research not just reading a 2000 yr old book and maybe you will find some concrete answers.
The moral of my story is your an uneducated idiot and the fact that this website exists is a disgrace. Stop listening to what other people tell you, get off your backside and get a clue.
It seems to be a poor response indeed to the arguments I put forth on the topic.
Personal insults are never very convincing arguments. For all the talk about unity, it appears that those who support homosexuality exclude those who believe in revealed truth, the Word of God, the Ten Commandments, Natural Law and the complimentarily and exclusive nature of marriage as the sole union of one man and one woman, open to the gift of new life.
I hope students at St. Joseph’s will have time to step back and reflect a bit more before resorting to ad hominem attacks.
Their ill-formed consciences inform their ill perceptions and they result in first rate ignoramuses.
These idiots don't even understand half the words they use.
Ah yes. The mortal sins of the liberals.
Fear: vague enough to be unpleasant so it must be eliminated. Forget the fact that fear is a good thing. It's a tool of survival as well as spiritually useful since fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Intolerance: A nice hypocritical stance since you have to be intolerant to wipe out intolerance. It's actually selective intolerance. Intolerance of error is a good thing. Schools that tolerate error produce idiots.
Inequality: Again a nice vague "notion" but inequality means bland sameness as well as being foolishly Utopian and limited to a materialistic perspective. Complementarity is far better than "inequality."
Boy what an ignorant mission statement. Purposely so, it makes no provision for a well-formed conscience vs. rotting perverse conscience.
Catholicism is an invitation for salvation from sin. Sin is the thing to be excluded in the Catholic Church. You can't hold onto sin and grab salvation.
Pure ignorance! So unaware of your own bigotry and hate. Pure unadulterated hypocrisy all wrapped up with the tired liberal cliche's about societal progress and detachment from the past. It's so ridiculous to watch the brainwashed liberals spin in their circular logic while they are worst dogmatists to their ridiculous unhinged mentality as well as their ignorance of history or anything beyond what's been spoon fed to them by their liberal masters in school.
Actually, since you've been "told" to not believe it and you've lapped up every bit of force-fed skepticism on the basis of faith and authority anyway,you have little place to speak of common sense. Since neo-Darwinianism is unproven and rests solely on the speculation of unprovable uniformitarianism. Your faith is simply in a fantasy that this fashionable.
The concept that a superior being creates an inferior being is common sense. The idea that increasing complexity happens without a teleological factor present is for only the truly unthinking and gullible to swallow.
You have anything serious to contribute or are you just going to rehash your hysterical nonsense?
Instead of just sitting through mass, maybe they should stop by the confessional and start to make peace and friendship with God. Maybe then, they'll get the help they need instead of the cruelty of encouraging them.
I would just love to know how epistemologically inquisitive you are. Maybe you should learn something instead of simply emotionally reacting. You're supposed to be a student. It seems you've been ripped off of your education. Study some Aristotle as a starter and learn how to think then move onto Aquinas and maybe you'll see the light dawn.
to be completely honest with you I really didn't even feel like an article of this nature was worth more than a coarse reaction, I am glad you spent your time responding to every post that you felt the need to.
As I stated, you are driven soley by the waxing and waning of your emotions, not reason. What you do or don't feel or what you are glad about is valuable why according to right reason? And it has what relevance to ontological truth?
The sooner you get yourself out of the fog of emotions, the better off you'll be and you'll have an open mind instead of one pre-programmed to emotionally react against anything that casts doubt on the rightness and nobility of the disconnected and incoherent liberal mentality.
Disobedience brings only disaster, destruction, death- what more proof do we need to heed God's call to obedience to His counsels and His bidding for our life's sake and our children's children? Why still choose the consequences of AIDS, STDs, sexually related INFECTIONS/violence and destruction of life?
Let's choose LIFE and the SOURCE of All Life-GOD-by heeding His Words of LIFE to end all these destructions everywhere!
I just wish that you, who this affects in literally no way, would mind your own business and worry about something that affects you. Even the most conservative student here would see a Unity Week even, and just calmly walk by, without making a hateful childish website.
Stop and think about what is really important. The answer is love, not hate. Congratulations, TFP, on just continuing the hate.
Should we start with the part where Aristotle tells women that they are the political and moral equivalent of plants? Or the part where Aquinas, in his interpretation of Aristotle's political theory, states that monarchies are morally just? We've moved past those concepts pretty successfully...
Before criticizing students' capacity to rationally examine issues, revisit your own dead philosophers.
I love the cherry picked quotes of Jesus. As if he didn't warn of sin and damnation. "Love" is also a highly abused word. Are we talking about Eros? Philia? Agape?
Sarah, what in your argument can't be used by pedophiles or necrophiles or those engaging in bestiality?
And by the way, Jesus didn't tell the woman to go on and continue in adultery. He said, "Go, and now sin no more."
Sin. Did you read that? Sin. S.I.N.
And I seriously doubt you would pass a test on basic Catholic doctrine much less explanations based on natural law.
I can bet, that you haven't reasoned your way beyond Thomas Aquinas or even lesser theologians and philosophers the Church has nurtured and produced.
More likely, you indulge in your atheistic fantasy (and it is a pure fantasy) in order to pacify your conscience so you can indulge in pretending you have no end and no responsibility for your own acts.
Saint Joseph's University can & will identify as a Catholic University because our Jesus teaches love & tolerance. We are proud to defend the rights of our fellow human beings, gay, straight, sideways, whichever way! My friends (hate to label them - but the "homosexual ones") are some of the best people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. They belong and nothing you preach and rant and rave about will make us think otherwise.
Proud SJU Alumna 2010
Go ahead genius. Give the citations for your two example and then show me how you rationally rebut their positions on this. You might discover that you don't have a clue about what they were writing about.
I bet you think a professor sneeringly giving you a half-truth is somehow a "proof."
You don't even know how much you've been suckered by idiots feeding your ego through false intellectualism.
I'll get you started: Please explain the difference between a Monarchy and a Tyranny as Aquinas taught. We can then move onto polity vs. democracy if you like. This is basic stuff.
You are also way off on the oppression of women thing. There are plenty of good and bad men and women throughout the old and new testaments. Like some of the other posters you sound like you're parroting liberal boiler-plate shibboleths. Women are more oppressed today by liberal gender-blenders.
Read Augustine and then try to pretend that "the times are a changin'" if anything people are worse.
And finally, your Jesus that were taught by the communist Jebbies is not the Catholic Jesus who came to save mankind because mankind can't save himself.
Read chapter 13 of St. Luke and then talk about Jesus' "tolerance." Only a fool is tolerant of everything.
You're grossly delusional and impossible to reason with. If you believe the world was literally created in seven days, that we were all created from the rib of one guy, and that all of our bad decisions or sins stem from some lady eating an apple then you're a lost cause.
I'm not going to waste any more time on this website or give TFP any more hits or attention that they do not deserve. I hope you have a wonderful life preaching your concept of the "Good Word" - and condemning everyone else who slightly disagrees. As I've stated before, I will continue support an inclusive community at Saint Joseph's University -- and everywhere else for that matter.
Peace!
I believe that superior being made His creation able to reproduce by manipulating a sample from his prototype and creating a reproductive system between two complementary beings.
You say I'm a lost cause, but your refuse to acknowledge the laws of cause and effect. You ascribe to the motto: "'cause I said so!"
Your useless rhetoric disguises your inability ro make an argument for your incoherent and unhinged mentality. A splendid example of what SJU produces.
The ironic part is that these same students who are so pro-unity week... are probably the same ones who complain about the crosses displayed during pro-life week...
Best of all..St Joseph's obviously realized that there was a problem with this week when they changed the name from Rainbow Week to Unity Week.
Well thank you so much for your critique & analysis. You really hit the nail on the head. Turns out that I am entirely incapable of defending my faith beliefs. I am such a dimwit, I suppose.
Well, be that as it may, we all know (I should hope) that faith is subjective & it varies from mind to mind. To continue with this argument, especially in this setting (online posting) seems futile to me. Plus, as I have noted before, you seem to have already made up your mind.
No use in arguing with a brick wall, eh?
The golden rule for humanity urges us to treat others with the same respect and dignity that we seek for ourselves. SJU is NOT calling for mass "conversion" to homosexuality (a preposterous concept, as one cannot be "converted" into or out of a particular sexual orientation but I suppose this is beside the point). Unity Week is merely providing an outlet to promote understanding and acceptance amongst the student body. That's why I support Unity Week, along with virtues of tolerance and mutual respect, at my University.
I do apologize if my unwillingness to agree with you and your very narrow perspective on faith renders me less intelligent. Or perhaps it is my unwillingness to enter full debate with you via an online blog. You seem to have all the time in the world to do so but my time is better spent elsewhere.
And yes, I consider myself to be a very splendid example of what SJU produces. So thank you :)
THE HAWK WILL NEVER DIE!
Saint Joseph's University '10
1)You abuse the Golden Rule by assuming if you want to do something wrong, you should be left alone. I'm sure you'd let your children shoot up heroin in your living room by that standard. Do you respect yourself as a child of God or an animal?
2)The implicit statement that disordered sexual orientations are natural is simply an article of faith of liberalism with no foundation in scientific facts.
3) Your university with its incomplete thinking and hypocritical views on "tolerance" as an end in itself has been hijacked by liberalism. The sooner that's understood, the better.
Well, that just shows the bankruptcy of your beliefs. You take the time to take potshots but you don't have what it takes to defend your own beliefs. Nobody forced you to comment and nobody promised you, you wouldn't be challenged. Now, you cower behind the medium not being sufficient for you to defend yourself. Maybe you should've thought about that before you waded into the discussion. And yes, your time would be better spent doing something other than trying to defend your indefensible and ludicrous ad hoc philosophy against the truth of the realities discussed.
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